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Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD,
dated April 25, 1859.,
Original located at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washinton, D.C., file
7002.,
http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/item/gpmsfb590425 (accessed August 02, 2015)

Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD,
dated April 25, 1859.

Transcribed by
:

TEI mark-up by
:
James P. Tranowski and

Published by: University of Vermont. All rights reserved.

Publication Information

PrivateBurlington April 25 59

Dear Baird

I am as unfit to succeed Dr V[...], as I should be to follow you. What can I say
more? I hate boys, hate tuition, hate forms, and possess only one qualification for
the place, namely poverty, and this, I grieve to say is shared in as high a degree
by some. others I know. I am extremely obliged to you & others for the
trouble you have taken, but the objections ( I won't take up your time by detailing
them) are infinite, & I have written to Pennington that I must positively
decline.

Answer me in the fewest -------------------------------- Page -------------------------------- words (I quake when I see the No. of your
letters) first. How many more volumes ( I have nine) will there be
of the Pacific RR Report? Secondly, Has
Dr Bachmann or somebody else repeated Daines Barrington's experiments, & found
out that birds have a natural tune, and don't adopt the song of the
nurse, after all, the said Daines having humbugged himself &
his readers in maintaining, that it was all a matter of imitation?

We do jointly salute you jointly

Yours truly

G. P. Marsh

Please present my regards & thanks to Mr Henry for -------------------------------- Page -------------------------------- the good
word I hear he spoke in my behalf.